


Playing With Fire

by dornfelder



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-07 21:46:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16416557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dornfelder/pseuds/dornfelder
Summary: When they cast spells together, their magic sang.





	Playing With Fire

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to become a full-length fic, but then it decided to stay exactly as it was. Also, of alle the beds the inquisitor could choose from, not one looked remotely like it should.

When they cast spells together, their magic sang. 

Upon their first meeting, Lavellan had thought it accidental, mostly. He'd been startled when that strange man with his Tevinter accent and his fashionable mustache positively ambushed him and demanded he close the rift – which Lavellan would have done anyway – then proceeeded to introduce himself. Lavellan attributed his unusal sense of elation to the fight that had just transpired, to the odd occurances in Redcliffe and the newness of it all – the inquisition, his part in it – and he didn't think about it, back at Haven, didn't think about it at all until Dorian Pavus stood in front of him again to offer his help. 

He felt it, again, when they woke in a prison cell together. Felt it when every question he asked, every answer Dorian gave, felt like a dance with steps the had never learned, yet knew how to do by instinct – a give-and-take he'd never experienced quite like this. He found himself stealing glances at Dorian, holding eye-contact for far longer than he ever did with someone outside of his clan – a _shem_ , on top of that, untrustworthy, someone from a country where elves were _enslaved_  – 

There were plenty of reasons for him not to let his guard down around this Tevinter magister whose eyes were carrying the same spark as his magic did. 

Fire magic wasn't common among the Dalish. Most mages Lavellan knew preferred spirit and cold magic or lightning over fire. He'd never met another mage who cast fire spells with such casual ease, whose magic felt like a mirror to Lavellan's own. The first few times that they accidentally cast the same spell at the same instance, he felt an overwhelming sense of rightness, and, looking at Dorian – gleaming grey eyes, barely concealed astonishment and delight – he wasn't the only one who did. It wasn't an accident they started timing their spells, that the flames burned brighter and hotter as they cast one fire spell after another, almost, not quite, as one. 

It would have been more prudent, certainly, to take another mage on his missions – someone like Solas, whose selection of spells was the opposite of Lavellan's, spirit and cold to Lavellan's fire and lightning. Solas cast a barrier with ease, something their entire party benefitted from, which also should have meant they made the perfect team. The opposite was the case, however; some instinct that Lavellan couldn't name making him more cautious than warranted around Solas. Lavellan had rarely relied on reason alone when his instinct told him something different, so he left Solas at Haven, then later, at Skyhold, and it had the added benefit of Solas not silenly disapproving of next to everything Lavellan said or did. 

So he went out into the wilderness and took Dorian with him, and that was that.

Still, there was more to it than their magic, more to it than a casual spark of attraction, something he tried to deny at first but that turned out too powerful to ignore. Lavellan felt it when he opened his eyes, having fallen unconscious on the battlefield, and found Dorian staring down at him with an odd expression. Dorian helped him to his feet, mute, his hand shockingly warm on Lavellan's arm even through the thick fabric of his robes. It remained there, for a moment; Dorian kept holding on to him, still breathing heavily from exertion, his eyes never once leaving Lavellan's face.

~~~~~

"I see you enjoy playing with fire, inquisitor," Dorian said, withdrawing from him. Lavellan stared into his eyes, wondererd whether his own face was mirroring Dorian's expression: desire, plenty of that, and lust, and a sense of bewilderment at being so uttely undone by one brief kiss, helplessy drawn toward the man in front of him.

There was no going back after that. 

Lavallan had taken lovers before, Dalish hunters, for the most part – strong and broad-shouldered, for _elves_ , that was. He'd never exected this: the warmth of a hearth fire in a chamber that was bigger than any place he'd been able to call his own, in a stronghold where three or four Dalish clans could have lived all at once without feeling crowded. A bed, almost bigger than any tent or wagon Lavellan had lived in. Not the austere, pristine bed that had stood there when they'd first led him to his new quarters. Lavellan didn't care about amenities or appearance; he'd been satisfied with his modest quartes in Haven – he didn't insist on ornate furniture or expensive clothing, didn't want that white horse Leliana insisted was most appropriate for the inquisitor – but this one thing, he wanted for himself and took, an old, sturdy bed, made from cherry wood, which they found in an abandoned farmhouse in the Hinterlands. An unusual piece for a farmer, more unusual for an inquisitor – unadorned woodwork, a single beam suspended over it where bedhangings could be fixed to fall across both sides of the bed, making it resemble a tent, and Lavellan had cast one glance on it and thought, _home_. And even knowing it would make him seem peculiar to these people, he'd mentioned it to Leliana the next time they'd conferred in Skyhold's spacious warroom. A couple of weeks later, he'd come home from a mission at the Storm Coast to find the very same bed in his quarters, with new bedhangings woven from grass and roughly spun wool. No one had commented on it, thankfully, and Lavellan had piled woolen quilts, pillows, and furs on top of it. Now it smelled like home, smelled a little like the forest. 

And then, Dorian – oh, _Dorian_ – stolen kisses, kisses that felt luxuriant like warm spiced cider on a chilly autumn's night, after a long day spent in the marshes searching for the last berries, sour and shrunken on leafless branches. Dorian kissed like it was a art form to be mastered, deliberate und lazy, but Lavellan soon found out he could shatter Dorian's composure by tugging at his hair, just so, by putting a hand on nis neck and brushing a thumb over the shell of his ear, until Dorian's kisses were suddenly no longer quite as sophisticated, no longer deliberate, until Dorian moaned, low in his throat, and shivered, eyes gone wide and dark, and his kisses turned hungry and urgent and all-consuming.

Lavellan had never felt anything like this. He didn't even have to ask whether Dorian felt the same way – he already knew it with every beat of his heart, in the blood coursing through his veins, deep in the marrows of his bones. They could have fallen into bed the minute they met. But then, if they had, it wouldn't have been enough: he needed more, needed the sound of Dorian's voice when he talked about Tevinter, about the empire and its chantry and its idea of blood magic – his quips, his self-deprecating irony, always poignant and sharp-witted, the sheer brilliance of his mind, just as bright and dazzling as his magic.

When they came together for the first time, it was almost overwhelming. Kisses and light touches hadn't prepared him for this, Dorian under him, warm, smooth skin and soft chest hair – more muscular than Lavellan, broader and more solid, somehow. Lavellan was tall, for an elf, he'd never felt _fragile_ with his partners before. It was its own sort of revelation, being with a human male, Dorian's scent was darker, earthier, he smelled of rich food and spices – muskier, too, and Lavellan was almost embarrassed about his strong reaction to the smell of Dorian's sweat and the intense, heavy scent of his groin. 

Dorian told him, then, of the pleasure men shared in Tevinter – things that the Dalish, or at least his clan, didn't do, or maybe Lavellan just hadn't known about it. _Buggery,_ Dorian whispered, laughter in his voice, and later, a little breathless murmur in Lavellan's ear, _I want to take you._

Lavellan hadn't really known what he was agreeing to – not that it would have mattered when it was clear as day to him that he'd never refuse Dorian anything he wanted that much, short of it involving murder or treason, and why was he even thinking about that? _Yes,_ he said, between urgent kisses, hands roaming over sleek golden skin, _yes,_ he whispered, Dorian's mustache tickling his thigh, legs spread for Dorian to kneel betweeen them, _yes,_ gasping, head thrown back as he felt Dorian inside of him for the first time. The sense of wrongness – _too much, too soon, too alien_ – faded, replaced by wonder at being joined, in such an intimate fashion, with another being, the inevitable conclusion of something that had begun in a chantry in Redcliffe with a man unlikely to ever become his friend, let alone more. And yet here they were. Lavellan closed his eyes and let the flames consume him, welcoming it all: Dorian, Dorian, _Dorian._


End file.
